JustAnEngineer wrote:Okay, so you don't want to compare the only Western Digital drive that matches the basic specifications of the Seagate ST3000DM001 in this deal because it's targeted at a different market.

Has any Western Digital 7200 rpm SATA3 hard-drive with 64MB of cache ever been available for less than $30/TB, delivered?

No, but I won't touch Seagates. Too many issues with 'cuda firmware. Too many DOAs in my experience. Too many dead drives over 15 years of being employed as a tech.Right now I'm staring at a less than 1 year old 2TB Barracuda LP that lived a gentle life clicking, and clicking, and clicking. Good thing I have backups.

My RAID 5 of WD Greens however - still rocking along like a champ after almost 2 years, zero TLER-related dropoffs, zero problems. I paid less than $80/ea for these drives before the floods. I also widely spec these drives in NAS, though I'm starting to rec the Reds.

To me, paying more for a drive is worth it for it to be not a Seagate. My dad worked for Seagate (as the senior line engineer for the Anaheim fab) in the late 90's and he feels the same way about them now.

If I could buy a Western Digital 7200 rpm (Caviar Black, Caviar Blue or RE) hard-drive for only 33% more than the 3 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14, I'd definitely do it. Can I buy one for under $40/TB? No, the 2 TB Western Digital models are $90/TB and the 3 and 4 TB models are over $100/TB.